The Hardest Part A Harry Potter Fanfiction
by itsariadne
Summary: She was ripped away from her life, made to pay for all her sins in the most brutal way possible. Her heart is broken in a thousand jagged pieces, her soul is tearing at the seams. Pansy Parkinson had chosen right, but it will cost her more than she was willing to pay. It will cost her the man that she loved and all the people she every cared about in her privileged pureblood life.
1. Prologue - The Queen in Hiding

**( A/N - Hi, this is a Harry Potter FF, no character belongs to me. JK Rowling owns all the copyright. Please read and review after, for me to know if I should keep going! Thank you! )**

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She walked through the long and winding cobblestone streets of her safe haven, a little village in southern France. The fading sunlight n the horizon was shining down on her, its faint rays making her brown hair glow like liquid fire running down her back. It has grown very long during the past few months and she wasn't about to change that. In truth, she missed her cute little bob. It was easier to tame and it left the skin on the back of her neck bare and cool. But she's afraid that if she returned to the familiarity of it, the safety of her current refuge would slip away from her, like water escaping the grasps of a clenched fist. It always felt fragile, this escape that she had secured for herself, as if any moment if she gets too comfortable or too complacent, it would break, and all the horrors of her past would come crashing down on her like the furious waters of a broken dam. With that picture in her mind, her throat constricted and she quickened her pace, her tiny feet leading her to a small house that is the very opposite of her palace-like residence in Yorkshire where she was from. But that house was from a different life, a life that she has been running from for almost an entire year now, a life that she missed, but would probably never go back to. She grabbed the doorknob like it meant the silver lining between life and death, twisted it, and pushed her way in. Once inside, relief coursed through her and she dared to lift her chin to face the waning afternoon light, breathing in lungfuls of air in an almost greedy fashion that her mama would surely frown upon. But she didn't care anymore about what her mama thought. And when that realization registered in her mediocre brain, she realized that she hasn't cared for anything but her survival for a very long time. Anything else, all the things that used to matter to her, even her previous self: money, status, privileges – they now seemed trivial.

She was trivial. That must be how she seemed to everyone else during her years at school. The thought consumed her like fire consumes a petrol-soaked piece of dry wood. Suddenly she felt her stomach lurch in an unpleasant way and she had to run to her humble sink to wait for the impending deposition of the meager lunch that she had that day. Thankfully, it didn't come and she sagged with relief. It was always this way, when she gets upset. Her body betrays itself and tries to get rid of the nutrients that are keeping her alive. She didn't like it; it burned her throat and made her mouth taste funny. It was disgusting, and it reminded her of what Tracy Davis used to do to keep her petite frame in shape. She may be vain, but she knows her limits.

But it kept on happening; every night when a bad dream wakes her up from a fitful sleep, her first instinct is to puke. Every time she is reminded of her situation and what is left of her life, her throat twitches, wanting to rid herself of everything in her stomach. She fought. It was one of the things she knew how to do. She tried not to get upset, to control her thoughts and focus on anything but her demons. It is starting to work, but it doesn't get any easier as time passes by.

These days, it did not take very much to upset her. Detachedly, she thinks she knows what might be happening: she's skimming the borders of depression. The realization was like a tight, cold grip on her heart, but she knew that before she succumbed to any frailty, she must fight. Exactly how does one fight off an emotional illness, though? Or is it psychological? Is she finally, after running and being chased, after almost being raped a couple of times, after losing three jobs in Paris, after being hungry for weeks and weeks, after begging on the streets and being kicked, spat at, and felt up, after integrating herself into muggle society willingly, which she never thought she would do, going crazy? Will insanity be the end result of all her struggles? Is she so infinitesimal to matter to any higher power, that her battles with her demons would be overlooked and dismissed just like that?

It was, all of a sudden, too much to bear while standing. She curled up like an infant on the wooden floor by the sink, her thoughts swirling in her head like a hurricane of memories and reflections. She tumbled in and out of consciousness, aware only of her loudly complaining stomach but was too tired to do anything to ease the ache. And so she stayed there on the floor, eyes closed and tears streaming from her eyes, landing on a little pool that gathered on the surface by her left cheek. If anyone from her previous life came across her at this very moment, no one would possibly recognize who she really was. For one thing, she has thinned out, and she wasn't even fleshy to begin with. For another… Well. No one would ever venture into guessing that this poor girl wearing rags and with patches of soot on her face was the former Slytherin Queen, Pansy Parkinson.

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**( A/N - Hoped you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it! )**


	2. Chapter 1 - Chaos is a ladder

**( A/N - Here is the first chapter! Again, no character is mine. JK owns all copyright. This is during the War of Hogwarts. Enjoy!)**

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She could see it in the sky, the evidence that war is going on. Sitting on the branch of a tree while waiting for everything to be over, Pansy contemplated the things that she did and did not do. It was dark, but it wasn't the kind of dark you'd see on a peaceful night. There were traces of color, echoes of light from spells that had been cast here and there, like ghosts of fireworks in the wee hours after New Year's Eve. The atmosphere was thick with tension and something else… death. She could barely remember what she thought before speaking out, but still, she did. She told everyone she wanted Potter handed over to the Dark Lord, and in all honestly, she did. They were such fools, brave and courageous, but fools nonetheless. She may be a coward but it wasn't out of selfishness or spite. She wanted to be saved, and she wanted many people to be saved with her. Unlike Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent, or even Blaise, it did not amuse her to have the Carrows at school with them. Their presence tasted like blood in her mouth, and their constant tormenting of the student body cut at her like a knife.

But she went with the show like the actress that she was. After all, it was what she was supposed to do. And even then she wanted to save herself and it was the only way to do it. But it did not keep her from doing certain things. Sometimes she would brew cough potions and healing salves, because she knew that the Carrows were hoarding Madam Pomfrey's supply. She would secretly place them inside the potions cabinet during the night, stealthy as a thief, except instead of taking, she's giving. Some nights she would just stand there in the middle aisle between the rows of beds, silent as a shadow, walking from one bed to the other, making sure that the recent victims were alive. In the faint moonlight streaming through the windows she could see their injuries and the bandage pads that covered them, and it made her heart ache so much, especially for the little ones, the first years and second years that had the misfortune to end up there.

When she was eight years old, she loved playing in their mansion's basement even when her mama disapproved. One day, she tripped over some things while pretending to dance ballet like she'd seen the Patil twins do, but she managed to stand and walk like nothing happened. It was then that her nanny, hearing the racket that her tripping prodiced, opened the basement door and ran down the stairs in apparent haste. She was about to assure her that nothing was wrong but her nanny's face transformed into a look of unadulterated horror as she gave a blood-curdling shriek while pointing at her legs. Pansy looked down and saw that her white stockings had turned red with blood, and that it was spreading outwards like it had its own will. She was too stunned to say a word, but she crumpled to the ground because she finally felt what her brain had not registered the moment it happened: intense and blinding pain.

It was like that with the little ones. She never really thought it would break her heart to see children abused like that until she saw it happening right before her eyes, like her eight year old self did not feel the hurt of her wound until she saw blood.

In her mind's eye, letting the Dark Lord plunder the castle with his army would put the people she fought to keep safe in danger, people who were barely old enough to fight a war, and before she let that happen, she would have to speak up, no matter what it would cost her.

It did not do her any good and she was sent into the dungeons with the rest of her house. She flailed her arms and hit anyone who would go near her; she screamed and screamed and screamed. But they mistook it for wanting to join Voldemort's army, rather than being indignant because they were about to open the school gates for the slaughter of all its students. And so she was stupefied and was carried to the deepest part of the castle like a rag doll. When Filch left, it did not take long for the dungeon gates to break, and all the students that had been trapped had forced their way out in such reckless manners that you'd think it impossible that they were ever educated. Pansy ached in places where she had been trampled on. Clearly her status means nothing anymore, if it even meant anything at all.

It was Daphne who hauled her up from the floor, Astoria openly crying behind her. They were the last ones to leave, and when they got to the upper landing the corridor was deserted. They could hear the sounds of battle from where they were standing, and it shook them out of their daze. This was a free for all now, and anyone with a wand is an enemy.

"Wands out." Pansy commanded.

Astoria had stopped crying and had managed to put on a brave look on her face. Daphne was terrifyingly beautiful with her features arranged in determination. Pansy had no idea how she looked and was too nervous to even care. The three of them made their way out step after step after step, keeping to the shadows or behind broken walls when they hear voices or pounding feet.

It did not take long before they had to be tangled up in all the fighting.

People were everywhere. All of them engaged in duels, battles of their own. There were bodies in the ground, some groaning, some trying to stand up, others alive but passed out, and some who were obviously dead. Pansy didn't know where to look or what to do, and absently she was searching the sea of strangers for a familiar face. There were a lot, but she doubts they would be friendly to her and her company. She could see Neville Longbottom with sweat trickling down his face, there was even Oliver Wood who is now looked like an actual man, fighting someone in a vivid green robe. Pansy pulled Daphne and Astoria to the wall as they made their way, all the while praying with all her might to anyone who's listening that no one makes a target out of them.

They were nearing the great hall when Astoria swivelled her head to the side and gave a startling cry. There, beneath one of the tumbled marble columns was Millicent Bulstrode, or what remained of her. Her limbs were missing, her torso was crushed and she was lying in a pool of her own blood. Daphne ran for her but Pansy restrained her arm. It was too late now, Millie was staring at the ceiling with dead eyes, and there was nothing anyone could do to save her.

A red bolt of light whistled past Astoria's ear and she ducked aside while uttering a spell of her own. Two figures were heading their way and she could barely recognize who they were in the distance. Another spell was sent towards them but Daphne blocked it easily with a nonverbal. Pansy was frozen, hesitant. She wanted to know who they were before she fired, because she wasn't sure whose side she was playing in now. But they did not have to come closer for her to find out.

Out of nowhere, Luna Lovegood appeared. Her blue eyes shining like a beacon in the semi-darkness. "Petrificus Totalus!" she roared over the chaos. Faintly, Pansy remembered Luna in her lion hat, and she thought that maybe the girl should have been a Gryffindor after all. One of the two men toppled over while Luna braced for her next spell, but the other one was quicker. He was (based on the timbre of his voice, Pansy deducted that he was a he) uttering the beginnings of a killing curse when Pansy acted without second thought. "Impedimenta!" The man jerked forward like he'd been hit by an invisible force from the back and fell face-first. Daphne stepped in front of her to finish him off with an immobilizing spell. From across the room, Pansy met Luna's eyes briefly, and she thought it crinkled in acknowledgement before it looked somewhere else as more Death Eaters descended upon them.

Their uniforms were covered with dust. The Slytherin green that should have saved them was now camouflaged and unrecognizable under dirt and grime. Pansy didn't mind, and beside her it was obvious that Daphne didn't too. They fought side by side like only best friends can do: in complete synchrony with whatever each and the other does. Astoria was thrown on the other side of the room beside Luna Lovegood, and once in a while Pansy's eyes would skim towards where they were to make sure that they were alive and fighting. Meanwhile, her brain-to-mouth filter had completely broken down as she fought while uttering only the very first spells that came into her mind. Already she was responsible for lighting four Death Eaters on fire.

"Incendio! INCENDIO!" Pansy was shrieking almost mindlessly.

"Lovegood, why are you putting out the fire?!" Daphne asked in apparent exasperation as Luna uttered spell after spell that put out the fire Pansy's mindless state had caused.

"The reek is intolerable!" Luna answered, her voice muffled, like she somehow had her hands over her mouth. But her voice, despite the racket that is going on around them, was as calm and distant as an undisturbed pond. It was quite frankly, a little bit creepy and comforting all at once.

There was almost a kind of camaraderie between the girls that no one would have ever thought possible as they fought the Death Eaters that came at them. After a while, the noise subsided as the last of them fell to the ground with a thunk, and that was when the acrid smell of burning flesh made its way through Pansy's nose. There was no more distraction to mask it now, and Pansy fought the urge to gag. Instead, she closed her eyes and sagged against the nearest wall. She was conscious of the heavy breathing of the other three people around her, their magical exertions leaving them fatigued. When she decided that she has gathered enough strength, she opened her mouth to say something sarcastic with the hopes of putting them all at ease, but before a word escaped her mouth she was interrupted by Luna Lovegood's voice, sounding ragged and frantic as she yelled, "Oliver, no!"

Her eyes flew open as she heard Daphne scream, her hand flying to her shoulder that was cut open and bleeding. Astoria left Luna's side and caught Daphne mid-fall. Luna and Oliver Wood were having a discussion of sorts, and Pansy knew there was no other time to act except now.

"Go, go, go." She urged the sisters forward as she brought up the rear, and soon they were running like hell was on their heels, not once that whole time did any of them look back.

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**( A/N - Please review for me to know if I should keep going! n_n )**


	3. Chapter 2 - Full Circle

**( A/N - Chapter 3, here you go! Please read and review! JK Rowling owns Harry Potter )**

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They managed to elude the fighting on their way out of the castle but they were still moving cautiously until they reached open space. The evening sky was full of smoke and traces of light, and as Astoria led Daphne to sit behind a rosebush, Pansy set up temporary wards to encase them. She needed to see how bad her best friend's injury was, and she could not risk being intruded upon by blood-lust crazy alumi while she was at it.

"How bad is it?" Daphne asked with a grimace as Pansy examined her wound.

"Not so bad, but it's bleeding a lot."

"I can't believe that bloody git was aiming for my face!" Daphne shrieked, causing Astoria to jump.

Pansy looked around them, suddenly alarmed. "Ssshhh! Will you keep it down? And he was what?!"

"Aiming for my face!" Daphne answered, obviously ticked. Pansy shrugged.

"Well, I used to think he was a good-looking lad, but now I think he's just a sick bastard."

"Goodness, Pansy. I know, right? Who aims at a girl's face? That's just sadistic."

"I'm just glad you're alive." Astoria said, speaking for the first time.

"Of course, I am. I'm a Greengrass, and a Greengrass is never an easy kill." Daphne smirked at her sister through her pain, and Pansy felt a twinge in her heart.

"We need Dittany. I'm going to go in and try to worm my way into the hosp –"

"No, Parkinson." Daphne ground out, her hand clutching Pansy's sleeves tightly. "I'm not going to die. It's just a wound and it's far from my guts. You stay here and I goddamn mean it."

"Okay, okay. But we need to move, like, now."

Pansy wrapped her handkerchief around her best friend's wound to stifle the bleeding. Daphne was able to stay on her feet as they trudged their way out, without even knowing where "out" really was. But it felt good to move, although she and Astoria had had to get rid of certain people who stumbled into their path. For the second time, she saw Neville Longbottom who looked frantic and deadly, but unlike the others he made no violent move towards them and let them pass. She didn't deserve his kindness and consideration but she accepted it anyway.

In the end, Pansy didn't know if it was luck or because they really weren't relevant, but they made it to a part of the forbidden forest that had recent signs of battle but was otherwise empty. There was a sudden silence, but Pansy had a feeling that the battle was far from over. And then the Dark Lord's voice shook the entire Hogsmeade.

_"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. "You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."_

There was a pause, and then:

_"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."_

The three girls looked at each other, horror etched in all of their faces. It was Daphne who spoke first.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm pretty sure that all this time we've been serving the wrong cause." She looked Pansy dead in the eye when she said this, and she knew that she was thinking the same things she was. All those years they tormented Potter and his gang, all those times they fawned over Umbridge. They had been wrong all along. Not that Pansy thinks they should have upheld justice and preserved righteousness, although the idea is great and all that. She wasn't sure about Daphne, but if she could do things over again, she would have stayed on the outskirts of it all. _She wouldn't have picked a side_.

But then again, it wasn't even logic or family tradition that made her pick. It was _love_. Love for Draco and eagerness for his approval. Draco, who she hadn't seen since he left during their sixth year. Her heart ached at the thought of him but she kept her mouth shut. One look at Daphne told her that her best friend understood, and that was all she had to hold on to for now.

Astoria looked from Pansy to her sister, but said nothing. She had always been a good girl and Pansy was sure that if she had been in their place, she wouldn't make the same mistakes. She loved the Greengrasses like she loved her own family, and now more than ever, she needs to prove that. They had to get out of this place, and they had to get out alive. All three of them.

Pansy ripped out a long shred of her skirt and gave it to Astoria so she could press it to Daphne's wound. The handkerchief had long been soaked and discarded. Hopefully, it would stifle the bleeding until it stopped completely. She then set out to look for a hollowed out tree where they could stay when the battle starts again. Deep down, she wondered what it would feel like to fight against Voldemort, but she knew that her battle was here, in keeping her friends and herself alive. If there was one thing she was good at, better at than Hermione Granger could only ever dream to be, it was self preservation.

After a few minutes, she found a perfect hiding spot and she marked it with her wand. She ran towards Astoria and Daphne and together they made their way to the tree that she'd found. It only fit two people inside, which means one should stand outside on guard duty. At first Astoria insisted it should be her, but Pansy argued and won out. So she parked herself on one of the lower branches, hiding behind the tree's thick green leaves.

Not long after that, the battle recommenced. Deep into the forest she saw a flash of green light and she shuddered. Did Potter give himself up to the Dark Lord? What would happen to all of them now? What about the people in the castle? She found her hands shaking and she squeezed her fists shut to stop them. Fear was making her body alert and she was straining all her senses to make sense of all the sounds that was reaching her ears, even if they were muffled. A cry here and there, a shriek of pain, a hysterical laughter that could only be Bellatrix's, echoing fainter and fainter until it was all but a tormenting piece of memory. For Pansy, it wasn't the sounds of pain that made her want to hide and rock herself back and forth. It was that laughter from Bellatrix, the pure, undiluted evil of it.

She folded in on herself and rested her head on her knees, no longer interested in the battle since it was apparent whose side would win. She was steadying her breathing, in and out, in and out, like how her nanny told her when she was having her freak out episodes._ It keep you calm_, she said in her broken English. _It keep you okay_. Pansy needed to be both calm and okay right now, and the only way she knew how was to breathe steadily, and so, for what felt like a few hours, she did.

And then suddenly there was silence, and it shook Pansy out of her reverie. _I hope it's over_, she thought, but she wasn't quite sure. And then a scream pierced the air, tortured, wild, and guttural. And that was when she knew without knowing how she knew it, that she had been wrong. It was Potter's side who won after all, though she can't figure out how. And that scream, it belonged to the creature who was Lord Voldemort. And he was dead. Gone forever. Vanquished.

Astoria came out of the hollowed tree then, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

"Is it over?" She asked in what could only be described as a hopeful voice.

"Yes, yes I think it is." Pansy said, and as she uttered the words she realized that she was glad. Really, really glad.

"THANK MERLIN!" yelled Daphne from inside the three. And despite the direness of their situation in the middle of that dark forest, the three of them managed to laugh.

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When they came out of the forest it was already light, the sun hanging low in the east and casting an inescapable spotlight on all the ruins of the battle. They saw people checking bodies, yelling when some are still alive. Hiding in the shadows of the trees, the three of them had been hesitant to come out. There was no Luna Lovegood in sight, which nagged at Pansy more than she ever thought it would. What if the girl died? But Pansy won't dwell on those kinds of thoughts. She saw Ginny Weasley, who hated her with a passion, and unconsciously she moved farther into the shadows, almost bumping into Astoria in the process. What if their presence would spark another bout of animosity? What if someone killed them on the spot? They can't just pop into existence very casually because they were notorious. She was notorious. Daphne and Astoria might stand a chance on their own.

But no, she wasn't going to chicken out. Not when they were this close to surviving intact. So she held Daphne's hand and looked her in the eyes. "Ready?" Astoria nodded absently, staring ahead, and Daphne echoed her question with a word. "Ready." With that, they plunged into the day and Pansy noted, almost in slow motion, how several heads swiveled in their direction, and upon seeing her, most if not all of those head's owners raised their wands.

"We're not here to fight." Astoria's voice broke the tension, louder and calmer than you'd expect from a soot-covered fourteen year old blonde girl wearing Slytherin uniforms. "My sister is injured and she needs immediate help." It was only then that Pansy noticed that Oliver Wood was among the crowd that had gathered around them because his head dipped to the side. "And since it was you who caused her injury," continued Astoria in a steady and crisp-clear voice, looking directly at the former Quidditch captain, "I think it would only be fair if you help her." Oliver nodded once and walked briskly towards them. With an easy grace, she lifted Daphne and carried her away. "Go with them." Pansy told Astoria. "Will you be okay?" She smiled to ease the worry on the younger girl's face. "Of course."

Pansy watched them walk away for a minute, and then she turned to look at the people who're still looking at her as if she's a particularly dangerous wild animal. She folded her arms across her chest and scanned their faces. Finally, she settled on Cho Chang. "Do what you have to do." she told her. Cho stepped forward and smacked her in the face. "That's for ridiculing Cedric's memory." Pansy looked back at her and said nothing. Another set of hands, Seamus Finnigan's, searched her and found her wand. He pocketed it while looking at her smugly. Pansy felt faintly relieved, because for a while there, she actually expected him to break it in two.

She was grasped from behind and was led to the castle.

"We found Parkinson!" A voice she doesn't recognize yelled from her side and Pansy winced away from the noise. The hands tightened its grip like a vice. They were, she realized, in the Great Hall, or what had become of it after a few hundred wizards ran amok with their wands. There was rubble scattered all over the floor and all that remained of the walls were half or less of their original height. There were also pieces of clear and colored glass, and as she looked up she saw that the enchanted ceiling that was the Great Hall's pride was now gone, its pieces crunching and breaking under the soles of her shoes. The windows were broken as well, and heat was infiltrating the entire space through every single gap it could find. Pansy felt the urge to vomit. The heat never suited her well.

Looking ahead, she noticed that very few people had been paying attention to her dramatic entrance, which caused an echo of slight disappointment on her part. She dismissed it as irrelevant and scanned the activities around her. She saw Hannah Abott bent over Lavender Brown, who was looking at her with a tightness around her eyes. Pansy's gaze travelled to her throat and fought the urge to cry out. There was a huge, gaping wound in there, and it looked absolutely hideous. Daphne's cut was a scratch compared to the thing on Lavender's neck. She looked away but her eyes landed on yet another sight. Near what used to be the teachers' long table she saw a cluster of red heads that she automatically recognized as the Weasleys. They weren't paying attention to her, but Ginny craned her neck to look. Pansy expected her to run forward and smack her like Cho had done, but the other girl merely assessed her with furrowed eyebrows, as if Pansy's survival confused her to an extent. In the end it was Neville Longbottom who spoke.

"Let her go." He said, weariness coloring his voice a dull grey.

There was a collective murmuring but it was Seamus Finnigan's voice that cut through and above it all. "What?" he said aghast, eyes bulging like a bullfrog's might. It wasn't supposed to be funny but Pansy found that she was shaking with suppressed laughter. She fought it down, thinking that if she let it out they'd think she was crazy like Bellatrix was, and the idea struck her as repulsive. "She was on their side, Nev!" He said 'their' like it was a filthy word, which, given the circumstance, it probably is. "She almost killed Luna, we saw it!"

Neville was about to say something that Pansy hoped, is a contradiction of the previous statement, but he was unceremoniously interrupted.

"Did someone mention my name?" Luna's head bobbed up from a hole on the floor. Her eyes looked swollen, like she was sleeping and had just woken up, which she probably had. There was a short gash on her left cheek and a red mass of swelling lump protruded from her head. A brief moment of silence was afforded while her eyes, that were as big and bright and blue as ever, searched the scene in front of her. They landed on Pansy, and if possible, grew wider.

"Oh!" she uttered in her pleasant, dreamy voice. "Thank Merlin, thank Merlin!" she was scrambling out of the hole despite Neville's protests ("Don't move too much, Luna, you're head – ") but the girl wasn't paying attention and had eyes for only one. "You're alive! I thought, I thought…"

In the end, Pansy never knew what she thought because Luna reached out for her with her arms outstretched and gave her a hug. If her limbs were free, she might have just hugged her back. Luna noticed the state of her and pulled away with her wide eyes stretched to the limit. She looked from face to face, and Seamus had the good grace to shuffle on his feet with an embarrassed and confused look on his face.

"Why is she being held like a prisoner? Didn't you know she –"

"Luna, we saw her threaten you with the Greengrasses. We thought –"

"What?" Lovegood asked, confusion apparent on her face. "No! They were helping me fend off some Death Eaters. If not for her I might as well be dead! He would have killed me, Atchley, I think. But she got him in time."

It was in this precise moment when Lee Jordan came lumbering into the Great Hall with a Death Eater in his grasp. "This one's still alive," he called, "but his behind is badly burned!" And Pansy thought she could smell a faint trace of burning meat in the humid air. She had the sense to blanch. When she lifted her face to get a good look, the Death Eater, who she doesn't recognize, met her eyes and screamed.

"YOU FOUL, WRETCHED, TRAITOR! YOU DID THIS TO ME! YOU BURNED ME ALIVE! I'M GOING TO DRAG YOU TO HELL WITH ME, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE WENCH!"

And the Death Eater fought Jordan's grasp like a maniac, all the while keeping her feral gaze at Pansy, but the former commentator was too strong for him to make any such progress. Lee Jordan's eyes appraised her with sad amusement as the man continued to yell. With a spell from Dean Thomas, the man was shut up. Zacharias Smith patted Thomas on the back. The others just seemed too shock to make any sound at all. But Luna was a different case entirely. She was smiling from ear to ear like all was right in the world and she doesn't have a second pair of head threatening to burst out from the lump that hid within the territory of her dirty blonde hair.

"How'd you get that?" Pansy ventured, trying to break the ice.

"Oh, this?" She patted her lump gingerly and winced in pain. I fell down the stairs. Greyback was chasing me. Us, actually." She glanced sympathetically at Lavender who was now being carried off in a stretcher by some people out of the Great Hall. Probably to the hospital wing, or what remained of it.

"They thought she was dead," Neville added, following her gaze. "but Hannah checked on her while we were going through the bodies. Turns out, she was just unconscious. Pretty fine with us, too. Merlin knows we have enough dead to burry, and a deduction would certainly be welcome."

"Y'all good, huh? Talking to this bitch like she's one of us? She's one of them! She would have sold Harry if she had the chance and you're giving her a hero's welcome?" That was Seamus, his face contorted in disgust, looking at Neville and Luna with a sort of blind hate. Pansy kept her face blank as an unpainted canvass until he spat on her shoe. She felt heat rising to her cheeks and barely registered the hands that were on her arms now.

"Seamus, stop." It was Cho, much to Pansy's surprise. She whispered something to Seamus and whatever it was, it seemed to calm him down. With one more hateful look, he stalked away to where the Weasleys were.

"Come on, Pansy. They're just upset because they weren't there when you saved me. They just have to get used to the idea that you're not so bad."

Luna led her away from the crowd while Neville fought to keep a certain degree of control over the angry and confused mob. Faintly, she wondered where Harry Potter is, and what would he say about the whole fiasco. Knowing Gryffindors, they tend to be just and righteous and all that, but maybe the effects of the battle would change him. He'd probably order for her execution in the account that she wanted to hand him over to the Dark Lord like some second hand cardigan. Or maybe she's just over thinking.

She and Luna ended up in a classroom, and finally Pansy gathered the nerve to ask the question that had been bugging her since, well, since the battle began.

"I just wanna ask," she ventured cautiously, "about the younger kids." She swallowed. "Did they fight in the battle? I mean, did some of them…" The word 'die', she decided, was way too overused in the scenario. "…perish?" She finally finished.

"Some of them fought. The first years and the second years were taken out to the secret exit in The Room of Requirement. Most of them, anyway. Some of the third years and fourth years went, too. The other years, well, I think most of them stayed."

Except those students from the Slytherin House. It was unsaid, but it hung in the air between them anyway, like a dead weight.

But even then, relief like nothing she had ever felt washed through Pansy like a tide. Most of them were safe, and even if they didn't know her or if they do, they probably hate her guts, but that was okay for as long as they were alive. She didn't really understand why she cared too much, she never really understood much of the things that she feels, but she did care. Even if no one could ever know about it.

"Did w – you" Pansy coughed as she corrected herself, then continued, "lose many people?"

"We did." Luna said solemnly, and Pansy felt a massive block of ice settle in her gut.

"You won, though. The worst is over." She felt compelled to say.

"Maybe. Some of the unrounded Death Eaters escaped, though. They might pose a threat and no one's decided how to fix that problem yet."

Pansy nodded because she could think of nothing more to say.

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**( A/N - AAAAH. I'm so nervous about this chapter. Please read and review! )**


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